There has been no shortage of explanations this week for what Democratic voters are signaling.
As voters cast ballots in Michigan, Missouri, Kansas, Virginia, Washington and Tennessee, candidates have weighed in. Political commentators have weighed in. Strategists, activists and voters have all offered their own theories of the case. Depending on whom you ask, the results were either a rejection of the establishment, a victory for the establishment or proof that the establishment isn’t nearly as powerful as people think.
The more I’ve listened this week, the more I’ve noticed one word keeps coming up: establishment.
“The establishment” won.
“The establishment” lost.
Voters rejected “the establishment.”
“The establishment” dug in.
I found myself asking over and over again: Who exactly is “the establishment”?
I found myself asking over and over again: Who exactly is “the establishment”?
I asked that question on MS NOW’s election night coverage Tuesday because I genuinely wanted an answer. If we’re going to explain an election by saying voters embraced or rejected “the establishment,” we ought to be able to identify who, or what, we mean.
The response on our program was essentially “it means different things to different people.”
Well, that’s exactly why I’m asking.
I’ve spent my career inside political campaigns, inside government, around party politics and now in television. One thing all of those experiences have reinforced for me is how words shape understanding. Politics is hard enough without using words that mean something different to each person every time they’re spoken.
When someone says Democratic voters are rejecting “the establishment,” who are they talking about? National party leadership? Major donors? Consultants? Incumbent elected officials? A county party chair? The woman who’s volunteered for Democratic candidates and worked the polls every election for the past eight cycles? The Black pastor who’s spent 40 years organizing a community and turning out voters?
Politics is hard enough without using words that mean something different to each person every time they’re spoken.
Those are not the same people. They occupy different places in our politics and wield different kinds of influence. Yet increasingly they are talked about as though they’re interchangeable.
What’s changed is that the word itself has eclipsed ideology.
Progressives use it. Conservatives use it. Democrats use it. Republicans use it. Almost everyone now claims to be running against “the establishment.”
The question is whether we’re all talking about the same thing.
Critiquing the establishment isn’t new. Malcolm X used the phrase more than 60 years ago. But when Malcolm talked about “the establishment,” he wasn’t using it as a catchall. He was making a specific argument about who held power, who benefited from it and who, in his view, was protecting the status quo. Whether or not you agreed with his analysis, you knew exactly who he was talking about.
Today, the term has become so broad that it often requires its own explanation. We’ve shifted from using it to identify a specific set of people or institutions to using it as a catchall for whoever, or whatever, stands in the way of our desired change.
The more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve realized the challenge isn’t simply that the term is used too often. It’s that we rarely stop to consider where the label begins and where it ends.
People often think of Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont as a challenger to the establishment, but he’s served in Congress since 1991. Although he’s been a senator since 2007, he, too, thinks of himself as a challenger.
At what point does an insurgent become the establishment? Is it after one election? Three? If someone isn’t ready for the political revolution you want, does that automatically make them part of the establishment?
Those questions matter because this isn’t just a debate over semantics. It affects how we interpret elections.
At what point does an insurgent become the establishment? Is it after one election? Three? If someone isn’t ready for the political revolution you want, does that automatically make them part of the establishment?
If one person is talking about party leadership, another is talking about donors and a third is talking about longtime community leaders, they may be making entirely different arguments.
Politics requires shared definitions. Once we stop agreeing on what words mean, we stop having the same conversation. That’s fertile ground for misinformation, conspiracy theories and competing realities.
We’ve already lived through what happens when Americans can’t even agree on how to describe what they just watched.
Let’s not make that problem worse.
So here’s my challenge, to myself as much as anyone else.
For the next 90 days, every time I hear someone say “the establishment,” I’m going to ask one simple follow-up: Who? Who exactly are you talking about?
Because if we can’t agree on what we’re describing, how can we possibly have an honest conversation about what’s actually happening?
The post I can sum up the theme of this week’s primary results in one word. But don’t make me define it. appeared first on MS NOW.
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